ili9341 SPI TFT Screen Connectors (for bare screens without boards)

[VeteranGamer]

Thanks, just one follow up question. Is there a trade off with using the VCC instead of a separate pin?

personally i dont think there is, and i've used these screens and this method in several builds

TintyPi
SNES themed GBZ
Nintendo DS Pi


but Moosepr or anyone with more technical knowledge may/might have a different opinion....


one advantage (coming from a layman perspective)....
with this method the BL (LED) turns on when the system gets power (just a white screen)
the advantage of this is that you immediately see life in your build, as opposed to connecting the BL (LED) separately and having to wait (looking at a dead screen) for the Raspberry Pi to do its thing and start enabling the screen, unlike a Composite of HDMI which is instant

(the SPI screens take some time to kick into action, as it has to wait for the Raspberry Pi to start sending the signals to it)




.

[Broomhill]

Biggest advantage I see is less soldering

Has anyone created their own ribbon cables from old 40 pin IDE or is it the wrong pitch to use with connectors? Could it still be soldered directly to the board?

[markolomew]

I've having an issue with my setup. I have everything wired up, but I'm not able to get the screen to even turn on. I've added the script from the other link you submitted, but I'm not even getting the screen backlit. One difference I'm noticing is that my 8p connectors apparently are top connection while my 10p connector is a bottom connection. Is this screwing up the wire path? It would be helpful if you had a wire diagram (or just list the pinouts) from the screen ribbon cable to the pi, in case I need to bypass anything. I'll attach photos, let me know if you can see anything glaringly wrong. I'd appreciate it.

[snoek09]

You need to solder an SMD resistor (10R) on the screen connector board.

[VeteranGamer]

I've having an issue with my setup. I have everything wired up, but I'm not able to get the screen to even turn on. I've added the script from the other link you submitted, but I'm not even getting the screen backlit. One difference I'm noticing is that my 8p connectors apparently are top connection while my 10p connector is a bottom connection. Is this screwing up the wire path? It would be helpful if you had a wire diagram (or just list the pinouts) from the screen ribbon cable to the pi, in case I need to bypass anything. I'll attach photos, let me know if you can see anything glaringly wrong. I'd appreciate it.

You need to solder an SMD resistor (10R) on the screen connector board.

proving that the ribbon cable is making connection, it doesnt matter if its a bottom connection or top connection...

also if you dont have a resistor at hand...
for the time being you can just bridge the connection with some solder....



.

[markolomew]

Update:
I found a 10 ohm resistor laying around, affixed that, and DID get the monitor to power on! But, I'm only able to get a white screen for some reason. I've tried con2fbmap 1 1, but I get no change. It outputs fine via HDMI. Spi is enabled, and overscan is disabled. Any other ideas?

And just to verify, the smaller board connects only to this group of pins, correct:
Pins 17-24?

[snoek09]

Some have added masking tape to the ribbon cable to make sure it makes contact with the connector.

[markolomew]

Here's some photos of everything, maybe something with give someone an idea of what's going on. Some notes: (1) I "have not" yet soldered down the small pcb board yet on the GPIO pins, bc I'm still waiting for confirmation that it's in the correct spot. I don't know why, but I can't find anywhere where it's listed exactly which pins it should be on. Weird. So, maybe that's causing an issue, but I don't think so.
(2) I didn't have a 10ohm SMD resistor, but I did have a large 10ohm, so good enough in the meantime.

Regardless, here's some photos showing everything setup up, but with the solid white screen on the tft display that won't go away. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

as for the masking tape idea, are you saying just apply some on the back of the ribbon to just give it more width, so it will press against the pins on the connector harder? if so, it's worth a try as well.

[VeteranGamer]

Here's some photos of everything, maybe something with give someone an idea of what's going on. Some notes: (1) I "have not" yet soldered down the small pcb board yet on the GPIO pins, bc I'm still waiting for confirmation that it's in the correct spot. I don't know why, but I can't find anywhere where it's listed exactly which pins it should be on. Weird. So, maybe that's causing an issue, but I don't think so.
(2) I didn't have a 10ohm SMD resistor, but I did have a large 10ohm, so good enough in the meantime.

Regardless, here's some photos showing everything setup up, but with the solid white screen on the tft display that won't go away. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

as for the masking tape idea, are you saying just apply some on the back of the ribbon to just give it more width, so it will press against the pins on the connector harder? if so, it's worth a try as well.

the positioning of the little board looks to be right...
would recommend to solder it to the RPi, just so that you have a better connection




it does have GPIO indicators on the back of the PCB...







.

[markolomew]

I'll solder it now and let you know. Thank you for the confirmation!